Dust to Dust
by hansolo18
Summary: Cerberus manages to bring Shepard back to life, but he's a body without a daemon. The aliens hardly notice, but the humans, the humans call him unnatural, a demon. They can't see the dust that collects on his skin like pond scum on still water or feel the pain of a missing soul. They call him demon and he finds no lies in their assessment.
1. show you fear in a handful of dust

Humans caused quite the stir when they first arrived on the citadel. Outsiders with talking beasts that hardly left their sides. They eyed the citizens of Citadel space with looks that both spoke disgust and distrust, and their whispers pronounced them demons. Their animal companions either shrank in fear or snarled with hackles raised, their lips moved and each pronounced. Soulless.

/\\\

He could hear himself wheeze, breath scraping through his lungs like sandpaper over rough stone. Air was leaking from his helmet faster than the ruptured life support system could fill it, and the sound of sucking lungs in his ears was enough to tell him how long he had. His limbs flailed and shook, and he tried to patch the splits in the tubing but it wasn't working it just wasn't working.

His mouth opened in a scream, a single name over and over until the air entirely departed from his helmet and the pull on his body and the pain in his heart grew too much for a split soul to take and the man known as Shepard departed from this world and his Daemon still trapped on the corpse of the Normandy burst from her form into a miniaturized galaxy of Dust.

/\\\

The 314 Incident was fast but brutal. Most fighting took place between ships, but the contested colony of Shanxi was where the two species met face to face for the first time.

The Turians with their advanced armor and weaponry lead a slaughter, in their ease of killing they hardly noticed how the new alien's beasts evaporated before one's eyes with the passing of their humans.

When the fighting settled down, the Turians and the Humans got their first good look at each other. The humans hugged their animals close, and stared pale faced at the tall crested creatures.

The Turian commander sent a report to Turian High Command, noting, _Each Human is accompanied by an animal, the type and breed seems random. The creatures do seem to possess intelligence and the ability to speak, High possibility of extensive genetic modification on the animals of their planet. Best ensure restriction placed on more genetic modification experiments in this races future._

They never would have guessed the truth.

/\\\

Cerberus did their best in putting him back together, but no one, no doctor, or holy man, had ever been able to turn loose dust back into a Daemon. This for a long time was a fact that burned holes in the back of Miranda's mind.

She could restore bone, muscle, even brain tissue, but restoring a _soul,_ even a perfect woman couldn't do that.

/\\\

The peace talks between the Humans and the Council were long and rough, the overwhelming force of the council ensured they got the best end of the deal. There was one thing however the humans were unwilling to budge on.

No being is to touch, talk to, or interact with a humans Daemon without the humans express permission.

They would not explain why.

/\\\

By the time Shepard had joined the military after living out his childhood in the slums of earth, The Council had been informed of what exactly a daemon was, and why it was entirely prohibited to touch them without permission.

Tensions regarding the apparent soullessness of the races of the Citadel had died down once humans came to the conclusion that their souls must reside within. (The poor unfortunate beings, to not know the joy of one's own soul)

/\\\

There are plenty of pictures of Shepard Daemon. This is a fact that drives Miranda's research into the thing that can't be done. She has studies pictures of the daemon from Alliance profiles, dossiers of the Illusive Man himself, even candid shots taken after Shepard was proclaimed savior of the Citadel. She researched all she could about known factors of Dust and its collection to no avail.

She doesn't know why she is as disappointed as she is. Even the Illusive man wrote off the recovery of the daemon as impossible.


	2. Chew Dust and Bitter Ash

/\\\

chew dust and bitter ash

There is a bright light that burns his eyes even as his lungs burn in his chest. There is a shriek in his ear that is drowned by rushing blood, and none of it does anything to assuage the agony currently crumbling in his bones and rushing through his veins. The empty pounding of his heart speaks one desire. _Tam. Tam. Tam. _

A face appears above, haloed by light, and then darkness strikes at his gaze, and he is sliding back, empty into darkness.

He awakes again, later this time; there is no alarm for air, only an alarming emptiness in his mind. A voice speaks to him from on high. Get up, get the armor, get up, get out.

He follows those words. There is nothing else.

He meets a man with a soul in the shape of a Labrador and biotic powers strong enough to do minor damage to the mechs across the way.

The voice on the intercom stops, but it speaks nothing of her death. The woman Shepard finally meets her, is something of a surprise. A door opens and then a woman with an ermine perched on her shoulder, hissing through sharp fangs at the man who clutches a star nosed mole to his chest. The confrontation last no longer than a split second. A gunshot, a body hits the floor and a daemon is gone.

Shepard doesn't blink, feels no sorrow or regret, just empty agony.

Time moves on disjointed legs. All smeary lines and loose water color. Events come and pass, and he finds it hard to focus, clarity entering his eyes only through direct interaction. He can see the frown that mars Miranda's face, and the way her daemon hisses low and fast in her ear.

Jacob and Miranda, interrogate him. or at least they try. They ask questions that receive minimal answers, words coming from a body that knows what to say but hardly feels the emotion it should be expressing. His childlhood. Earthborn, Gang Member, joined the alliance for shits and giggles one drunken night, ended up liking it, ended up staying. Virmire? Lost Ashley, overwhelming forces, too bad really, he owed her lunch from a bet long lost.

They take him to a space station, and direct him down a hall and into a communications room. He is scanned and suddenly the space changes. All red and blue from a dying sun, its surface molten like the insides of a once frozen pizza roll just out the over_. Best let cool, you'll burn your tongue_, a new squad mate told him once, Shep thinks he died on Akuze, hard to tell these days.

The man who sits in the shadow of the sun likes to smoke. His hand trailing fire as the cigarette is brought to his lips then waved about to make a point. He has a daemon who is laid stretched out behind his chair, all glinting eyes, and sinuous body. Some type of large cat, though Shepard can't tell the breed with the harsh lighting.

This man. This Illusive Man has some sort of request to make. _Wont you look into it Shepard. We did rebuild you Shepard. For Humanity Shepard. _

A compromise is met, and he turns and leaves, his tongue tasting bitter in his mouth.

/\\\

Shepard finds himself on Freedom's Progress, the colony devoid of human life though radios still spit music, food left untouched on tables or burnt to a hard carbon on the still operating stove tops. They run into security drones, but no humans, no Collectors. Nothing on the Illusive Man's list and Miranda is getting angrier as they go on. She almost shoots when a door to a prefab home springs open.

Quarians. Guns raised, suited tight. Not the reason for the disappearance. Too lightly armed, not enough to take out a whole colony and then there is

Tali

And for a moment he feels something. A looseness in his chest that isn't the pull of Serperation, but is _something_. He begins to smile, but then she moves and that loose feeling compresses around his lungs, and he feels the missing pull of his soul acute.

His fingers tense and curl, and there is no furred shoulder to touch, to check in with. Just him.

Tali seemed to have started the conversation without him or maybe it's he who lost track of it.

"You've been gone two years Commander." The Quarian's silver eyes meet his through her mask. "And now I find your working for Cerberus. I want to trust you, Shepard, but I can't, not like this." Her face turns from his and the mask takes in his companions, assessing them all with quick strokes of her eyes.

She slows and turns back to him, voice wavering just like it did when they first met, "Commander?" She gestured at his side, "Where's Tamesis?"

It always took aliens a second viewing to notice ones soul. Having joint body and soul did that to a species.

His shoulder rises despondently. "I woke up. She wasn't there." His fingers clench around themselves and were it not for the armor plating at his fingertips his short nails would bite at his palms.

"I'm sorry, I knew she meant…"

Miranda has heard enough and her voice soared over his left shoulder. "We have to move Commander. Those colonists need to be found."

If Tali was offended she hid it well behind her mask, ignoring the Cerberus Operative, and tilting her head imploringly at her old Captain.

"The Colonists are gone. But there is something you can help me with Commander."

He would help her, of course he would.

On Freedoms progress they find no human colonists, just a Quarian hiding away. If he had a daemon, it would be a hummingbird, Shepard decided as Tali led the quivering alien away, a hummingbird who never sat still, just buzzed and buzzed and buzzed.

/\\\

They returned to the Minuteman station, with little good to share and a firmer knowledge of the dangers on the horizon. Miranda directed Shepard to the Illusive Man when they reached base, and the body shambled away if not contentedly, at least obediently.

The dark haired woman sat hard on a stool to her left and sighed. Her hands smoothing the short fur of her soul. "He's not the same person."

"No," Jacob agreed sitting down next to her, His daemon Adil brushing the floor with her long tail, her boxy head resting heavily on his thigh. "I never thought… it would be _that_ bad, being without a soul, but he's just…"

"Nothing." Miranda supplied, disappointment creeping up inside her as all the work she put into the past two years rolled to a stop like a sedan hit by a semi. She sighed again and made sure to bring her head up proudly, if only for the show. "At the very least, he's still good at shooting things."

Jacob let out a breath of a laugh. "Yeah, there's that at least."

One of the large doors whooshed open and Jeff Monroe, the SR-2's would be pilot hobbled into view. He gave the two Cerberus operatives a smile more akin to a grimace and disappeared down the hallway that Shepard had walked through. The Illusive Man must have finished with Shepard and decided that the man was at least mentally stable enough to proceed as planned. That or he didn't want to see a few billion dollars go totally to waste.

But money isn't everything, and if Miranda were in charge. This thing masquerading as the Commander wouldn't have made it two steps off Freedoms Progress.


End file.
